My primary background deals with a mixture of print and web design. These two areas of design have individual approaches regarding accessibility. In print, accessibility means to incorporate either a tactile or braille element, in addition to providing visual examples without requiring common language knowledge.
Examples of this can be found on electrical equipment found in the home or in commercial settings. I use my lawnmower as an example of designing a printed material that is accessible for all users. Within the manual and guidebook are several cautionary warnings and advisements for prevention of injury or death. The warnings are printed in several languages, and also include bold yellow images that visually present the dangerous elements of improper use of the lawnmower. I have also found that manipulating text can increase the effectiveness of the warning. “Type should be large, preferably at least 16 to 18 points” (Arditi, 2010). Other elements that will boost a printed materials accessibility can be; contrast, point size, leading, font family, font style, font color, letter spacing, margins, and clear images. It is also to include accompanying text with any images, in order to describe the image in case a reader cannot see the image clearly. By following some simple rules when designing for accessibility, you can increase the safety of the product being used or utilized. One interesting example I came across in my life recently happened when I was purchasing band-aids for an injury. I discovered Johnson & Johnson who create the Band-Aid brand, have begun putting brail on their packages. I checked all the other companies in the first aid aisle, and found that they were the sole provider of accessibility for the visually impaired.
In web design, accessibility has a different mode of application. Although Braille computers exist, they can be expensive to buy.” you can pick up a decent PC for a thousand bucks — the displays sell for $9,500 to $17,000.” (Haldane, 2003) Web design accessibility means that the designer needs to be able to create a site for the common users, as well as users that may be visually, phonetically, or audibly impaired users.
Programs that are utilized for accessibility include screen readers, which help visually impaired users, and clear concise text for audibly impaired users. Physiologically impaired users must rely on consistent navigation and low sensitivity settings on created links. In Adobe Dreamweaver, the design can choose within a set amount of pixels to create the active link.
It is important to keep accessibility in mind when designing, not only for the morality and ethical reasons of “doing no harm” but also because by law websites have to be accessible to all users. I could not find any actual law that states, “All printed material must be accessible to everyone”. However common sense implies that in consumerism, you want to reach the highest user audience possible without harming or excluding anyone. As far as any ways to increase accessibility, I would like to schedule an interview with Johnson & Johnson regarding future plans for their products’ accessibility. I like the Braille aspect in print, but another option may be to provide a “sample” product much like an auto parts store does in their muffler and oil filter sections. In web accessibility, I think the screen reader software needs to not be read so robotic. This was briefly touched upon in the KUOW podcast, which talked at length about how websites may be functional to our eyes and ears, in reality is not very helpful and often times is distracting or plain indiscernible when translated through an E-reader screen software for the visually impaired. Do these programs need to read the specific code “end line” because I found it to be immensely distracting and couldn’t begin to imagine how a blind person would interpret this information? Is it possible to borrow the GPS personality technology in order to provide different voices for different ethnic groups or nationalities?
References
Arditi, A., Ph.D. (n.d.). Designing for people with partial sight [designing for accessibility in print]. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/design/accessible-print-design/making-text-legible
Haldane, M. (2003, March 6). Braille for computers [Newsgroup message]. Retrieved from McGill Reporter: http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/35/11/hayward/
Peck, N. (2002, December 2). An introduction to accessible web design [web design accessibility]. Retrieved from http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/accessible-web-design
